Jean Roland Chery, a Haitain journalist now living in the United States, has served as CPJ’s consultant to Haiti. He wrote extensively on the 2010 earthquake.

2010

His collarbone severely fractured in the January 12
earthquake, Haitian journalist Yves
Adler Boissonniere needed considerable medical attention—care that he could not
get in his devastated country. With US$40 and a few gourdes (Haiti’s currency) in his pocket, Boissonniere
decided in late January to cross the border to the Dominican Republic
in hopes of getting care. Yet his situation remained exceedingly difficult: A
few dollars could not pay for the X-rays, examinations, and treatment he needed.
This week, Boissonniere’s prospects brightened
when he received grants from international organizations,
including CPJ, that will allow him to seek immediate care.

Tags:

A month after the January 12 earthquake, the death toll for journalists has risen to 26, with two others injured, according to a new provisional tally released by media groups in Haiti. Under the umbrella of International Media Support, a joint mission of press groups (including the Association of Haitian Journalists, SOS Journalistes, and the Group for Reflection and Action for Freedom of the Press) visited Leogane, Petit Goave, and Grand Goave on Friday—the areas most devastated by the disaster—to try to get a better sense of the number of journalists killed. CPJ continues to investigate the number of deaths from the quake.

The two Haitian dailies, Le Nouvelliste and Le Matin, are still coping with the devastating effects of the January earthquake. Though these outlets continue to disseminate news via the Internet, it will take them some time to resume publishing in print.

Tags:

Every evening, between 9 and 10 p.m., people in areas affected by the January 12 earthquake listen to the program “Nouvel pou nou Konnen” (News to Know). Huddled in tents or sitting in the open air, men and women cling to their transistor radios to get news on the latest decisions of the Haitian government or agencies coordinating international assistance in affected areas. The program comes via the California-based media development agency Internews, which opened a press center in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, in order to bridge the information gap following the destruction of most media outlets in this city.

Tags:

Radio Metropole’s
journalists, coping in a tent set up in the garden of the radio station’s
office in Port-au-Prince,
have not still resumed their normal pace of work because of the trauma caused
by the January 12 earthquake. The station resumed its normal programming on
February 1, after broadcasting news via the Internet for two weeks.

Tags:

Amid Haiti’s chaos, Marcus Garcia struggles every day to fulfill his duty as journalist. He said he routinely goes up and down the streets of Port-au-Prince in search of fuel for his car. When talking on the phone, the tone of his voice indicates the difficulties he encounters as a journalist willing to keep doing his job in the aftermath of the January 12 earthquake. Garcia feels the toll as heavily as anyone right now: He lost his wife in the disaster.

Tags:

Radio Tele Caraïbes is out on the street after losing the use of its offices in the January 12 earthquake, but the Port-au-Prince broadcaster has resumed operations nonetheless. A makeshift newsroom has been set up in a tent in the middle of a street. Staff meetings and discussions are being held under the gaze of passersby. Reports are being prepared without production studios, and technicians are making do with damaged equipment. The broadcaster has faced numerous challenges in its 60-year history, but none as extraordinary as those being posed in the earthquake’s aftermath.

Tags:

More than two weeks after earthquake that devastated Haiti, several community radio stations are still off the air. In the western and southeastern parts of the country, at least 16 stations are facing serious problems that have suspended their broadcasts, Sony Esteus, executive director of SAKS, a local organization of community radio stations, told CPJ. The earthquake obliterated SAKS’ office in the Bourdon neighborhood, east of Port-au-Prince.

Tags:

Michele Montas, the Haitian journalist and
former spokeswoman for U.N. Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon, has
experienced a harrowing time in aftermath of the Haitian earthquake. “Haiti appears to be on doomsday,” said Montas, who
said she has been shaken by the number of dead and wounded on the streets of
the capital, Port-au-Prince.
Her own home suffered only minor damage, Montas said,
adding that that she intends to stay in Haiti for a prolonged period to
help her country through the crisis.

Tags:

The Association of Haitian Journalists has recorded at least three media
fatalities and one seriously wounded journalist as a preliminary toll from the earthquake
that struck the Caribbean island on January 12. In an interview with CPJ from
Port-au-Prince, AJH Secretary General Jacques Desrosiers identified the early
victims as Wanel Fils,
a reporter with Radio Galaxie; Henry Claude Pierre, a Jacmel-based correspondent
for Radio Magic 9; and Belot Senatus, a cameraman
for Radio Tele Guinen.